A Case To Plead

Due to successive failures of the Queensland State Labour Government, I feel myself living in limbo with my freedom to live an Independent life style stolen away. Under the Labour Government the Department of Disability Services introduced The Growing Stronger was designed to give people with disabilities greater lifestyle choices to engage in the community.

Today I sit here with my choices and freedom frozen in time, as I wait for both Queensland Disabilities Services and Queensland Health to act.  To receive assistance through Disability Services I must have a permanent disability that is unlikely to improve without medical invention.  Yet I sit on a Queensland Health waiting list for medical test to determine if my new potentially life threaten disability can be treated, only when all treatment options have been explored can my application for assistance from Disabilities Services be reviewed.

 

Anyone to accesses the public health system knows, waiting lists can take years.  As I wait my active community life is now denied. I can no longer travel to work via taxi on my own, until I have doctors clearance.

The irony of my situation is I already have a permanent disability, as I was born with Cerebral Palsy and at 43 I am beginning to experience the effects of the aging process, this disability alone qualifies for assistance by after 10 years I continue to sit on the waiting list for assistance.

Calls pleading for extra immediate assistance from my doctors over the last 4 weeks have fallen on deaf ears.  Call back if her treatment fails or her condition deteriorates. While this makes no sense to my doctors, I just smile back saying, why would the pay up if they don’t have too.  After waiting for 10 years this attitude makes sense to me. 

Add to this logic is staff at Disability Services are still waiting for the Newman's governments polices changes to filter through and the end of the financial year looms. Now is the least likely time for the Department of Disability Services to be spending money.  My illness is ill timed indeed. And so I sit wait on a hospital waiting list trapped in my home until doctors clearance grants me freedom to move about independently in the community again.